For Mount Vernon pupils, it’s learning aboard a s’cool bus

MOUNT VERNON — Washington Elementary School teacher Kari Martin is teaching students in an extended learning program inside a school bus converted into a classroom.

For more than a year, students, staff and professional contractors have been working to renovate the space from a school bus into what it is today. Martin said when her class met on the bus for the first time in mid-September, it was full week before any academic work was done. The kids were just so excited.

Martin said the students traditionally have met in the library — a distraction for the students in the library and also in the extended learning program, which provides students with high abilities accelerated learning to meet their academic needs.

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“It helps tremendously to have a dedicated space for these groups,” Martin said.

The converted school bus is a project the Mount Vernon Community School District tackled as one of 38 Iowa school districts to receive up to $40,000 each in state grants under the STEM BEST HD program. The program focuses on high-demand skills in science, technology, engineering and math and was supported by an appropriation from the Iowa Legislature.

In an interview last year with The Gazette, Susannah Maddock, Mount Vernon K-12 extended learning program teacher, said her research found other schools across the United States doing similar projects, and she was inspired.

The converted bus is not mobile and no longer has wheels.

Up to 10 students and their teacher can file on to the bus, which has been renovated with the dashboard, driver’s seat and bench seats removed. A new floor was added — laid by fourth-graders — and an air conditioner and baseboard heating unit installed.

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There are a couple small tables and chairs — also put together by students — but students primarily find comfortable seating on a play couch with a secure base low to the ground, a soft cushion and supportive pillows. There is even a Promethean board, an interactive whiteboard that helps engage students in learning.

High school students in industrial arts classes and Iowa Jobs for America’s Graduates also contributed to building the classroom.

Jessica Fitzpatrick, a behavior interventionist at Washington Elementary, acted as a project manager while the school bus was being converted. Her background volunteering with Habitat for Humanity to build houses helped prepare her for this project immensely, she said.

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Fitzpatrick said Martin was the right teacher who would “dive in and teach on a school bus.”

"She’s not rigid in her thinking or teaching style,“ Fitzpatrick said. ”From the very beginning, she was like, ‘Great, I’m all in. Let’s do it.’”

“As we grow and need more space, I think the bus isn’t here out of necessity. I don’t feel like we have to have a bus for a classroom because we don’t have space. It’s not this or a portable. There are things that are challenging. Kids have to wear coats to get here. Getting kindergartners from their hallway out to the bus,“ Fitzpatrick said.

Giving students the opportunity to pitch in on the bus project gave many of them a “confidence boost,” Fitzpatrick said.

“It’s so nice to be able to provide kids opportunities to show where they have strengths. We had kids who maybe in the classroom are struggling or behaviorally and we brought them out here, and they were a rock star,” Fitzpatrick said.

That contribution also gave students a sense of ownership and pride over the bus.

The next project surrounding the bus will be to work with an art teacher to have a mural painted to replace the yellow paint, Fitzpatrick said.

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